


peaceful, easy feeling

by rangerhitomi



Category: Cardfight!! Vanguard
Genre: Beach Holidays, Established Relationship, Fishing, Fluff, M/M, Non-Explicit Intimacy, Watching the Sunset
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-10
Updated: 2019-08-10
Packaged: 2020-08-14 02:08:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20184481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rangerhitomi/pseuds/rangerhitomi
Summary: Mamoru and Ibuki take a much-needed vacation. Alone. On a deserted resort island. It turns out to be the best possible getaway for the both of them.





	peaceful, easy feeling

**Author's Note:**

> I have lots of headcanons about these two but the two that feature in this fic are 1) ibuki's parents have never been in his life since his teenage years, and 2) mamoru is the sexually experienced one of the pair. that being said there are some vague mentions of intimacy but nothing overt.

The island is surprisingly temperate when Ibuki and Mamoru step off the boat and onto the dock; it's humid, but not unbearably so, and there are small air conditioning units to keep them cool if the weather changes.

It's perfect weather for hiking, perfect weather for fishing, perfect weather for being alone to relax without the constant worry about the imminent demise of the planet nagging at the back of their minds. They'd both agreed to leave work at the mainland, which meant no phone calls, no emails, no worries, and as Mamoru stretches in the warm sunlight, Ibuki relishes the thought of spending quiet moments alone with him for the next four days.

They take their things to one of the cottages and check the mini-fridge to make sure there's food in it this time (there is); Mamoru sits on the edge of the bed and dangles his feet as he watches Ibuki place their toiletries on the sink.

"What do you want to do first?"

Ibuki puts the travel sized shampoo bottle on the edge of the bath. _Play Vanguard, _he thinks first, but that's too predictable and they came all the way out to the island so it would be a shame not to utilize that while they could. "It's not too hot today. We could go for a walk."

"Mm!"

Mamoru helps finish putting away their clothes and packs a few bottles of water, a first aid kit, a compass, and some snacks in a small backpack. When they both have comfortable shoes on their feet, Mamoru takes Ibuki's hand and leads him toward the jungle heading toward the interior of the island.

It's nothing Ibuki is unused to, hiking in dangerous terrain; when he traveled the world for the last two years of his teens, he traversed equally isolated areas with few difficulties. What he's surprised about is how well Mamoru seems suited for wilderness travel, stopping at certain bushes and identifying which fruits to eat and which to avoid, what plants to steer away from, and which spiders and snakes were venomous.

As Mamoru finishes up gently relocating a skittish orb weaver whose web Ibuki had walked face-first into, Ibuki tilts his head at him, brushing the last of the sticky web from his hair. "Since when did you become a nature guide?"

"Hm?" Mamoru looks at him, puzzled. "I've told you before that I used to do wilderness camps as a kid, right?"

No, he hadn't, and when Ibuki expresses his disbelief that a pretty-boy jock like Mamoru had ever spent any significant amount of time camping in mud and eating wild berries, Mamoru just laughs.

"Pretty-boy jock, huh?" He glances down at his cargo shorts and unbuttoned polo shirt. "Yeah, I guess you're right."

He leans easily into Ibuki with another laugh and takes him by the hand again, swinging it between them as they venture off deeper into the trees.

* * *

It's late afternoon by the time they reach the top of the cliff overlooking the sea, and they settle against a smooth, flat boulder that affords them the comfort of lounging against it without being terribly uncomfortable. Here, there is a stunning view not only of the sea, but of the entire island; their cottage, closest to the shoreline, is so small from here, but the reminder that they're completely alone hits Ibuki more acutely than at any point that day.

After a while, Mamoru breaks the silence, as he often does. “Are we...” his face scrunches up a little, “dating?”

Ibuki can only blink in response at first. “I assumed so, seeing as we’ve, you know.”

He’s a little red in the face.

“Yeah.” Mamoru leans in and presses his face into Ibuki’s shoulder. “I mean, like, should we… should we be more open about it?”

_More open _is an understatement in itself. As far as Ibuki is aware, only Kai, Miwa, Aichi, and Tokura know, and that’s only because Kai and Miwa managed to infer it from Ibuki’s secretiveness, Kai and Aichi have no secrets from the other anymore, and Tokura asked them point-blank after spotting Mamoru with his hand on the small of Ibuki’s back at a shop tournament in a way she considered _not quite the way professional acquaintances behave. _

_We have to be more careful, _Ibuki chided Mamoru after they had gone back to Mamoru’s place for the evening, _in case anyone else picks up on something._

It’s this, the issue of the both of them being very public figures, that worries Ibuki. “Every woman in Tokyo would kill to be me if they knew. As in, kill me for getting in their way of hooking up with you.”

Mamoru shakes with laughter and Ibuki gives him a small punch to the shoulder.

“I’m serious!”

“I know, I know.” Mamoru chuckles. “The curse of being so incredibly charming, huh?”

“And that enviable modesty, too.”

Eventually Mamoru’s laughter dies down and he begins to twirl Ibuki’s hair between his fingers. “Ibuki… maybe not to the public, but… at least our friends? Shouldn’t we tell them?”

This isn’t an unreasonable request. Ibuki’s fear of people knowing his personal attachments stem from his difficult history, something Mamoru has only recently been made aware of. Mamoru knows how hard it is for Ibuki to open up like this to others, just as it’s terribly difficult for Mamoru to keep this a secret from the people _he_ was close to.

_Why, _he wonders, _why am I so reticent about the idea of telling my friends that I’ve found someone who can make me happy?_

“Yes,” Ibuki says finally, reaching up to play with Mamoru’s hair in turn, “I think we should.”

Maybe he wouldn’t have to feel so isolated from everyone else now.

Mamoru smiles into his neck. “I’m glad. Will I finally get to meet your parents?”

Ibuki stops mid-twirl. His brain short-circuits. “My… parents?”

“Yes. You know mine, but I’ve only ever heard you mention yours once.”

It was in passing, too; Ibuki had off-handedly mentioned that even his parents began to avoid him once he took on the influence of the Deletors in his teens.

Ibuki’s body tenses; Mamoru immediately recognizes his discomfort and apologizes.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset—I shouldn’t have said that—“

“It’s f—“

“It’s not fine, I didn’t think about the fact that you must have a reason for not being around your parents anymore.”

Ibuki shoots up to a sitting position, body rigid. Mamoru presses his hand into Ibuki’s chest and gently coaxes him back, where Ibuki exhales slowly to relax some of the tension in his shoulders. “It’s… it’s not a big deal, I just, they’re not… in my life.”

This is one thing he’d never told Mamoru about, in part because he’d done his best to shrug it off, and in part because he knew Mamoru, with his loving and supportive parents and sister, wouldn’t really understand.

“They’re divorced,” Ibuki goes on. Having to dredge up these memories is uncomfortable. “And then when I… when the thing with the Deletors happened… I just kind of...”

_Left._

“I’m sorry,” Mamoru whispers.

“It’s not your fault.” Ibuki’s voice is brisk. “They never made the effort to come back into my life, so I’m not going to concern myself with it.”

Mamoru can’t comprehend the notion of anyone living without at least one of their parents or some family member close to them. Even Kai, whose parents are deceased, had found a family of his own in Aichi’s…

“Ibuki?”

“Mm?”

Mamoru’s smile always gives warmth and life to everyone around him, a peerless paragon of strength and love. This is no different, Ibuki thinks, as he looks into Mamoru’s warm eyes and feels the tension in his body dissipate.

“My parents will be your parents.”

Relief and hope flood Ibuki’s body like a hot tidal wave; tears burn at the corners of his eyes. He doesn’t trust himself to speak, so he simply nods.

Mamoru understands. They don’t speak much as they make their way back down the cliff to start dinner before it’s too dark.

* * *

It's not the first time they've made love, but this time is different, somehow.

They've surpassed the longing discomfort of being together like this, the fear of rejection, the fear that their enemies could use their relationship against them, the fear of ruining their friendship or making their work relationship unbearable. Ibuki still loses his breath when Mamoru explores his body with his hands, his lips, his tongue; small gasps still escape him with each caress and each suckle and each kiss and each thrust.

Throughout it all, Mamoru's gentle voice asks for Ibuki's reassurance, _are you okay? is this comfortable? would you like me to continue? _and each time, Ibuki nods fervently, _yes, yes, _as he wraps his arms around Mamoru, pulling him closer, _closer _until the friction of their sweat-slicked skin becomes too hot, and when it's all over, Ibuki lies limply under Mamoru's body, both of them filthy and utterly exhausted and somewhat dizzy from the euphoria, but perfectly content.

Mamoru finally finds the energy to brush Ibuki's bangs from his sweaty face, and they both smile as he kisses the corner of Ibuki's lips. "We should clean up, huh?"

They should; they're both sweaty and sticky and disgusting. Instead, Ibuki pulls Mamoru's face into his neck. "Let's stay like this a little longer."

Mamoru presses his lips to Ibuki's collarbone. Ibuki sucks in a breath. "Okay, but don't fall asleep before we can clean up."

He's teasing, but they fall asleep tangled together in the mess of their lovemaking anyway.

* * *

Fishing is one of Mamoru's favorite things to do; as a child, his father used to take him on lazy Sunday mornings, where they would drive out of the city and to a quiet beach and get their feet wet from the wooden planks of a pier out on the water. As he got older, he would take Tokoha, and they would talk about classmates they thought were cute, or Vanguard strategies, or whose fishing technique was superior (it was Tokoha's, but Mamoru pretended otherwise). They would take their fish home, gut, and prepare it for dinner, and it would always be better than any restaurant.

Mamoru treasures those moments, even today, and being together with the man he loves, making new memories, is worth the world to him.

"You dress like you're the captain of the university golf team."

"I've actually only played golf once," Mamoru admits, touching a finger to his chin as he dangles his feet over the water, "and I was pretty bad at it."

This news is more surprising to Ibuki even than the knowledge that Mamoru had been a wilderness scout as a kid. "I thought for sure you'd be the type who knows how to golf."

"I'm not bad at putt-putt, does that count?"

"It does not."

Mamoru just laughs.

Nothing bites for the next twenty minutes, which they spend in comfortable silence, but Ibuki is starting to swing his feet restlessly and ends up accidentally kicking off one of his sandals, which splashes with a plop in the water.

"Well, damn."

"Uh-oh." Mamoru leans over. "Here, hold my rod--"

Ibuki makes a little noise of amusement. Mamoru gives him a playful shove as he crawls by, pressing his fishing rod into Ibuki's left hand. "You hang out with Miwa-kun too much, I was definitely talking about this."

"What are you doing?" Ibuki eyes Mamoru, who is pressed against the dock and reaching toward the water for the floating sandal. It floats just barely out of Mamoru's range.

"Aw, man... on second thought, let me have the rod back, Ibuki-kyun."

It's his nickname for Ibuki, first christened on this very pier as they fished. Ibuki initially took annoyance to having a cutesy nickname, but it grew on him the closer and closer he and Mamoru became...

Mamoru shimmies to the edge of the pier and reaches out toward the sandal with the rod in hand.

“What are you doing?”

“Almost… there...”

“You’re going to fall in.”

With a sly grin, Mamoru glances over at Ibuki. “Hold onto me and make sure I don’t, then.”

He’s too charming for his own good, and always has been; this same pier was the exact place Ibuki realized how _attractive _Mamoru was, and how _attracted _he was to him, sitting there, fishing, then standing there, holding him around the waist as though he would be of any help if the fish they caught had been too feisty for them. Continuing to hold him even after they had wrangled the fish to shore, letting go only reluctantly. Looking into his eyes as they celebrated their achievement, eating it together.

Lying next to one another that night, in the cottage they shared, as they kissed for their first time.

“Ah—ah! Ibuki, I’m—!”

Too late, Ibuki realizes he had been so lost in his memories that he had forgotten the very real problem of Mamoru falling into the sea while trying to rescue a floating sandal with a fishing rod. He tries to grab Mamoru around the waist, but succeeds in nothing but being dragged in after Mamoru as he slips off the pier.

The water isn’t terribly deep here, but Ibuki is too concerned about rip tides to feel comfortable when he doesn’t immediately see Mamoru, who can’t be far away since he fell in holding Mamoru, only letting go when he momentarily panicked at the impact of the water.

He needn’t have worried; Mamoru pops up behind him, wrapping his arms around Ibuki’s waist with a laugh.

“Sorry, I didn’t get your sandal.”

Ibuki wants to let himself sink into Mamoru’s embrace but refrains because they’re both still in the water. “That’s fine, I’m pretty sure I’ve lost the other one anyhow.” This is true; his other sandal had come off when they landed in the water. A smile creeps onto his face as he half-turns his head. “Did you save your rod?”

Quiet laughter. It’s tantalizing. “Accounted for.”

They kiss. Mamoru’s lips taste of salty seawater. Ibuki relishes it.

* * *

“Your _phone._”

“I said I was sorry.”

“Our _vacation!”_

“I apologized ten times now, Mamoru.”

“We agreed to leave them at home!”

“And this is my _eleventh_ apology!”

As Mamoru laid in bed after making love to Ibuki for the fourth time in as many days, waiting for Ibuki to finish with his shower, he leaned over to the side table drawer for a baggie to put his used condom in and found Ibuki’s work phone instead.

When Ibuki left the shower, a tiny towel tucked around his curved hips, he walked into their room to find Mamoru sitting naked on the bed holding his phone up.

It wasn’t as though he had intended to do work on their vacation. He brought it as a _just in case, _and hadn’t even used it (with the exception of scanning his work emails for anything that looked particularly pressing, anything that wouldn’t wait until they returned, of which there was miraculously nothing). But Mamoru was still fairly upset, ths was supposed to be their weekend free of any kind of work at all, and Ibuki was out of apologies after five minutes of kneeling next to the bed as Mamoru pouted.

“We can sleep in the hammock tonight,” Ibuki offered as a last-ditch attempt to appease his lover, and he was at last successful.

They coat their bodies with a pleasant-smelling insect repellant and bring out a few long-lasting citronella candles; one blanket is sufficient here, as is one pillow, because they have no personal space between them on the narrow hammock. They settle in to watch the blue of the sky fade into warmer colors, Mamoru practically lying on top of Ibuki.

Light blue skies turn to pink to orange to red to purple, and the light of the setting sun bathes them in warmth and peace. The citronella candles continue to smolder on, keeping them blissfully insect-free even exposed as they are, swinging between two trees on a hammock not comfortably made for two.

Still, they find comfort in other ways.

Mamoru leans into Ibuki, nestling his head under Ibuki's chin. "Remember our first night together?"

There's no way to forget. Ibuki holds onto memories of that night tighter than any other, even all these months later. "Always."

"You apologized." Mamoru chuckles, warm breath ghosting across Ibuki's skin. He trails his fingers over Ibuki's chest and adopts a lower voice. _"I'm sorry... that was my first time."_

Ibuki scoffs, though it's somewhat good-natured. "And you just looked at me and said _I know._"

Mamoru lets out an echoing laugh that fills their little part of the island. "I didn't mean it like that." He tries and fails to prop himself up by the elbow in the dangling hammock and ends up putting his face on Ibuki's shoulder again. His laughter fades out to a quiet sound of affection. "I didn't know you were inexperienced because of how it was, I knew because..." He sighs wistfully, twirling Ibuki's hair. "It felt special, Ibuki. With you, I mean. I knew it was your first time because it felt like something so special."

They fall into a long silence, save for the sounds of the island: rustling trees, cawing of birds, lapping of ocean waves on the docks. Ibuki's skin is warm, his face a little red, but he isn’t embarrassed by Mamoru’s confession; rather, he seems relieved, in a way. Maybe he, like Mamoru, always feared that their first time didn’t live up to their partner’s expectations. For Ibuki, it was his inexperience. For Mamoru, it was his abundance of it.

Ibuki doesn’t mind, and he thinks no less of Mamoru for it. That’s what Mamoru believes, now more than ever.

They breathe in and out together in perfect sync, playing with the other's hair. It's a peaceful existence, a peaceful night, and neither of them want to move even as the sun finishes its descent and the stars begin to peek out from amongst their velvet backdrop. Mamoru finds his eyes drooping with tiredness as Ibuki traces circles with one finger on Mamoru’s back.

It’s so comforting.

“Ibuki?”

“Mm?”

Mamoru presses his face against Ibuki’s chest, so he can feel the _th-th-thump _stuttering of Ibuki’s heart as he whispers “I love you.”

The words are difficult for Ibuki to process, and even harder to repeat; he has heard the words so seldom, has uttered the words even less, that they sound jilted and insincere when he repeats them. Frustrated, he tries again, and again, and soon he is whispering _I love you, I love you, I love you _into Mamoru’s hair until it finally sounds _right, _and _good, _and Mamoru melts into his embrace.

Tomorrow, they will return home, go to meetings, try to avoid the knowing grins of the branch chiefs as they resume their professional relationship, play some Vanguard at lunch. The day after, they’ll have dinner at the Anjou family home, where Mamoru will tell his parents that he and Ibuki have been seeing each other, and his parents will ask probing questions before embracing Ibuki and welcoming him to the family (as Mamoru had promised).

But tonight they fall asleep together in their little hammock, bathed in starlight and the sound of the gently rocking water, and life is finally perfect.

**Author's Note:**

> feed me with comments and enjoy my copious vanguard twitter shitposts at rangerhitomi


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